Description

1849. Perpendicular gothic church with bell cote and hall adjoined to NE, ashlar sandstone front, contrasting rubble sides and rears with ashlar dressings. Base course. Chamfered arrises. Lancet windows.

SW ELEVATION: single storey later rubble porch at centre, flat-roofed with parapet and stone mullioned tripartite to front, battered ashlar angle buttresses, door on return to left, flanked by small window. Main gable with centre bay slightly advanced and framed by corner piers, fleuron carved panels to heads and octagonal dies above; tall 3-light traceried window above porch with string course/hoodmould, stepped, blind tripartite window in gablehead with continuous cill course; eaves parapet with substantial ashlar, gablehead bell cote, each face gabled with lancet opening and hoodmould, octagonal corner pinnacles and squat ashlar spire, capped with lead dome and weathervane. Lancets in flanking narrow bays.

SE ELEVATION: 4-bay nave with tall lancet to each bay. Recessed, lower vestry block to outer right, with gabled, painted ashlar entrance, pointed arch doorway, cross finial, 2-leaf doors and pointed fanlight, 4-light timber dormer to roof above as cupola; pointed arch window to right. Hall beyond (see below).

NW ELEVATION: mirror of SE elevation.

HALL: rectangular-plan, piend-roofed hall adjoined to vestry block. Piend-roofed porch projecting to centre of NW elevation with battered buttresses and round-headed door on return to NE. High, narrow lancets breaking eaves in gabled ashlar dormerheads, those to NE paired and to each of 3 bays, with trefoil panel in shared gableheads, single lancets widely spaced to outer bays of NW and SE elevations. Birdcage cupola to centre ridge, enclosing ventilator with ogeed dome and finial.

Coloured glass in horizontal panes to nave; decorative stained glass to main window (geometric patterns and foliage), by David Keir, and to border-glazing of front lancets. Horizontal panes to hall. Grey slates, terracotta ridge to hall. Ashlar coped skews.

INTERIORS: rendered nave with compartmentalised flat ceiling and gallery on cast-iron columns with blind arcading to gallery front. Boarded dado. 2 aisles, fixed pews. Tiered gothic-detailed pulpit in shallow apse with depressed archway, double stair to gabled, pinnacle- flanked chair at centre of screen. En suite communion table, chairs. Hall with deep coombed ceiling on bracketed beams with exposed rafters; window into vestry with tracery and leaded upper panes.

GATEPIERS, GATES, BOUNDARY WALLS AND RAILINGS: ashlar gatepiers framing drive and quadrant walls to West Road, with shallow pyramidal caps. Low coped boundary wall and quadrants, rising higher with keel-shaped coping. Decorative iron 2-leaf gates and railings with gilded heads.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Built as the second Free Church in Irvine, soon after the Disruption. The name comes from the generous benefaction of the Mure Sisters in its creation, though the main benefactor remained anonymous.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17829692

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)